Senior Project Automation & Control Engineer in Nottingham

Join Our Pack. From a bold idea to revolutionising dog food, Years has grown into a fast-scaling business dedicated to helping dogs live longer, healthier lives. In just 3 years, we’ve built a great start-up business, serving thousands of happy customers, all while striving to achieve our mission. Our goal? To give dog owners a better, fresher, and healthier way to feed their pets. We provide human cut, personalised meals designed to support each dog’s unique needs, delivered straight to their door - no preservatives, no compromises, just real nutrition. You can find our customers across the UK, with future ambitions to scale internationally and continue transforming how people care for their dogs.

Your Mission: Years is entering a new phase of automation — where ideas turn into machines, and engineering vision becomes production reality. This role is built for a rare type of engineer: a hands-on doer who can take a verbal idea, sketch it, design it, spec it, fabricate it, wire it, program it, and commission it into a fully functioning automation system. You’ll be the driving force behind Years’ next-generation automation systems. From inline washers to precision dosing rigs, from control panels to sensor networks, you will architect and physically build smart automation that increases uptime, reduces operator load, and scales our production capability.

1. Team Purpose & Challenges
The Engineering team exists to build the automation and production technology that enables Years to scale reliably, safely, and efficiently. As we move from startup to high-volume manufacturing, the team’s mission is to create robust, repeatable systems that increase throughput and reduce operator dependency. The key challenge is speed: we must design, fabricate, and deploy new automation faster than traditional suppliers can, while ensuring food-safe engineering, uptime, and long-term maintainability.

2. Strategic Focus & Priorities
The immediate priority is delivering practical, working automation that solves real production problems — from inline washers and conveyors to jigs, controls, dosing rigs, and sensor-driven systems. Longer-term, the focus shifts to standardising our automation architecture, improving line reliability, and building modular systems that scale with our growth. The role balances rapid hands-on execution with strategic input into the automation roadmap, component standards, and future investment decisions.

3. Reporting & Leadership
This role reports to the Engineering Manager with a dotted line into R&D director and will become a key technical authority within the team. While primarily hands-on, it involves guiding best practices in automation, influencing design decisions, and supporting junior members when needed.

4. Collaboration
You’ll work closely with Production, Maintenance, Technical/QA, NPD and Operations to understand challenges, test ideas, and deploy new systems into the live environment. Collaboration will range from scoping functional requirements, integrating automation with existing kit, supporting operator training, and coordinating line trials — ensuring every system you build is practical, safe, and fit for the realities of daily production.

5. Hands-On vs. Strategic Balance
This is a heavily execution-focused role, with the majority of time spent designing, fabricating, wiring, programming, and commissioning automation. Strategic input is still important — especially in selecting platforms, shaping standards, and advising on long-term scalability — but the core expectation is delivery: taking ideas, engineering them, and physically making them real.

Key Responsibilities

• Turn verbal concepts into engineered automation solutions (sketch → design → build → commission)
• Design mechanical components including frames, brackets, guards, housings, jigs and assemblies
• Specify sensors, actuators, pneumatics, hydraulics, control hardware, safety devices and fabrication requirements
• Fabricate components using welding, cutting, bending and machining where required
• Build and wire control panels including PLCs, VFDs, safety circuits and instrumentation
• Program PLCs and HMIs to deliver reliable, safe and user-friendly automation sequences
• Develop functional specifications, control philosophy and documentation for new systems
• Prototype automation ideas quickly and iterate in live production environments
• Commission new systems end-to-end including testing, validation and operator handover
• Support wider engineering projects, installations and continuous improvement activity
• Maintain compliance with food safety, hygiene, electrical and mechanical safety requirements

What You’ll Bring

• Strong hands-on automation and controls engineering experience
• Ability to design and build full systems end-to-end — mechanical, electrical and control
• PLC and HMI programming capability (Siemens, Schneider, Allen-Bradley or similar)
• Mechanical fabrication skills including welding, cutting, bending and assembly
• Competence in LV electrical work, panel building and safe isolation
• Experience selecting sensors, actuators, pneumatics and instrumentation
• Ability to turn incomplete ideas into fully engineered working solutions
• Practical problem-solving mindset with fast prototyping ability
• Comfortable working in fast-paced FMCG or manufacturing environments
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across teams
• Ownership mentality — able to deliver projects independently from concept to commissioning

What’s In It For You?

• Extensive health care cover including full cancer coverage and a choice of hospitals or consultants (AXA top package)
• Annual £250.00 Learning & Development budget for courses, books or other self-learn activities
• Annual £100.00 Wellbeing budget
• Up to 2 weeks working abroad per year (selected roles)
• Monthly recognition through our Yappa of The Month programme
• 1 Volunteer day per year – dog themed or not: it’s your choice!
• Subsidised employee groups – from five a side to padel there’s loads to get involved in or the chance to start up your own group
• Quarterly subsidised team events from Axe throwing, crazy golf to cocktail making
• Exclusive discounts on Years and Years treats for yourself and friends/family
• Lunch & Learn programme – from dog first aid to financial savviness we’ve got sessions planned to cover all kinds of topics
• Casual dress
• Your birthday off or different day if it falls on a non-working day
• Ability to sell any unused holiday back to Years at the end of the Holiday Year (maximum 1 working week)